


Your eyes, Irresistible

by PigSlay



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Crush at First Sight, Denial of Feelings, M/M, Pining, Zayn takes a little bit longer, but yeah, for Harry anyway, just once during a play scene, niall is barely mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-22 20:38:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4849697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PigSlay/pseuds/PigSlay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry and Zayn are both attending an art school, Zayn for painting and Harry for theater. Zayn gets asked to help with the sets for the production of a play written by Harry. When the star quits, Harry spots Zayn and begs him to take up the part.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your eyes, Irresistible

**Author's Note:**

  * For [holyzarrialltrinity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/holyzarrialltrinity/gifts).



> I don’t know One Direction. To the person receiving this fic: I tried really hard to do the music festival one but I really have no clue how music festivals work, so like, I decided to start over with this one 9 days before the original due date. If you don’t mind, I WOULD like to continue with the music festival one at some point after this exchange is over when I have more time to do actual research? If that’s okay OR not okay, just let me know in the comments. Thanks. :)
> 
> THANK YOUUUU SO MUCH TO JANEE. Without you I'm pretty sure I would've forgotten my morals (I mean the morals where I refuse to drop out after getting an extension - what I'm basically saying is without you I probably would've dropped out. So yeah, THANK YOU). You offered so much encouragement and help and I'm forever grateful for it. :) I love you. <3
> 
> Also THANK YOU to my beta reader, tumblr user zaynlilo. You made me submit this with confidence. :)
> 
> And lastly, THANK YOU to the mod of this exchange for hosting this and giving me an extension. I remember last round when you thanked me for actually turning mine in on time, so I know how stressful people asking for extensions is for you. :/ But I'm really thankful you gave me one and for running these exchanges in general. You're the best. <3

Zayn has been going to this University for about two years now. He loves it, loves learning all about his one biggest passion since he was little: art.

This isn’t to say it’s easy. Not at all. People who think art students have it ‘easy’ because they ‘just paint all day’ couldn’t be more wrong. Zayn could rant about that all day though.

However, in Zayn’s opinion, the pros still outweigh the cons, and he doesn’t see himself giving up on it anytime soon.

Still, sometimes he doesn’t feel his art is as good as his other classmates’, or good at all. So when he was picked to paint sets with a few other people, he was flattered. Again, on the outside, this may seem to normal people like a boring task, but Zayn loves it, loves designing sets for the actors, actresses, and eventually the audience members who will go to the performances too.

Zayn smiles at the thought of that many people seeing something he worked on and continues painting the flower leaves. Behind him he can hear this conversation:

“What do you mean?!” That’s the play writer – Harry – as Zayn’s been told, and he sounds like he’s freaking out.

“I mean exactly what I just said.” That’s the play’s star – Nick or something? Zayn didn’t really pay much attention when he was told that person’s name to be honest. “This play is garbage and I want nothing to do with it anymore.”

“But you can’t!” Harry cries. “We don’t have anyone else to play the part!”

“Well that’s your problem, not mine. Goodbye Harry.” Zayn hears the star stomp off and feels sorry for Harry. That’s got to hurt.

As he hears Harry sniffling, he turns around for a second to give him a sympathetic smile. When Harry looks at him, his frown immediately turns into a weird shocked expression. Zayn’s almost afraid Harry’s eyes are going to pop out of his skull or something.

Zayn raises an eyebrow, convinced Harry’s lost his mind, and goes back to his flowers again. He thinks he hears Harry’s voice whispering “who is that?” but thinks it’s probably just his imagination.

That is until a few short moments later when Harry calls out “Zayn!” and Zayn ends up being so caught off guard he paints a line extending way past the stem.

He turns around, big glare on his face. “Yes?” he says, anger obvious in his voice. He knows he’s being unfair with his tone and face, because Harry didn’t _mean_ to make him mess up, but he gets really defensive over his art.

Guilt immediately seems to fill Harry up. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he tells Zayn, starting to walk over. “I didn’t mean to make you lose focus.”

“It’s alright,” Zayn lies, setting down his brush and walking over, meeting Harry halfway. “But… uh… Why did you want my attention?”

“Right,” Harry replies, collecting himself. “Uh… I was wondering… So like, our star quit and we have no one else to play the part and…” He breathes in, then all at once says, “Could you please take the part?”

Zayn takes a moment to really understand what Harry is saying and then starts laughing loud and hard. When Harry’s expression remains unchanging though, he stops. “You’re joking right? Do you all not have any understudies or anything?”

“Sadly… that _was_ our understudy,” Harry admits, blushing.

Zayn sighs. “Look, I hate to disappoint you, but I can’t act. I can only paint, which is the whole reason I’m here.” He motions in the direction of the set, still having a hard time not losing his head over that out of place extended line.

“Besides, I don’t even know why you’re asking me anyway. Do you ask this to all your set designers?” he teases.

He thinks he hears Harry mutter ‘just the really beautiful ones’ but isn’t sure because just then, all at once, Zayn’s flatmate and another one of the stars of the play – Louis – walks over.

“Ah, come on Zayn. Don’t down yourself like that.” Louis throws an arm over his shoulder. “Remember when we were in that play in high school?”

“Yeah,” Zayn responds sarcastically, turning so he and Louis are face to face. “Remember when I forgot my only line on stage and embarrassed both myself and the entire theatre department?”

“That’s a bit of an exaggeration,” Louis mutters.

“Ms. Smith called me out in front of the entire class,” Zayn pushes. “And said ‘this is why it’s important to remember your lines.'” He sighs. That memory is probably one of his most embarrassing memories of all time.

“Yeah, but you fixed it in the next show,” Louis points out. “Come _on_ , Zayn. You’d be great as the lead. And if you’re really worried about it, you and I could practice together on a regular basis or something. Please?”

“But what about the set designing?” Zayn pouts. He was really enjoying designing the sets and doesn’t want to give it up.

“You can still do that too!” Harry immediately replies, making Zayn turn around. He’d almost forgot Harry was there to be honest. “If you want to, I mean.”

“See?” Louis smiles. “You should do it, Zayn! Please?”

Zayn really wants to protest more because he thinks this is a terrible idea, but with both Louis and Harry looking at him like this is the most important thing in the world, how can he resist?

“Okay,” he finally gives in, grinning when Harry and Louis start cheering. “Now can I please go back to fix my flower?”

Harry laughs. “Yes, of course. I’ll go print out a script for you.”

With that, Zayn rushes back over to the set and gets his paintbrush again to fix it. It’s dried up a little bit since Harry was talking to him, but it’s still wet enough that Zayn can paint over the line. Call him a perfectionist or whatever, but Zayn hates it when he makes dumb mistakes like that.

As he’s painting, he can’t stop thinking about the fact that he’s in the show now. Not just in the show, but the main character too. He has to silently wonder to himself how he’s going to pull this off, and, moreover, what exactly is it about Zayn that made Harry jump in to ask him to take the part before he even knew his name?

He tries not to think about that too hard, but it ends up eating away at the back of his mind for the rest of the day anyway.

***

After classes are over the next day and Zayn and Louis are back in their flat, Louis immediately wants to run through lines with Zayn.

“Come on,” he urges, pulling at Zayn’s arm to try to get him off the couch. “Practicing your lines is _the_ most important thing to do in a play. This is basic 101 stuff, come on.”

“Louis,” Zayn sighs, looking up from his laptop. “I have so much homework to do. This essay is due tomorrow and-”

“And you can go back to it after we’re done.” Louis grumbles when Zayn’s face turns back to the laptop. “Come _on_ , Zayn. You know I’m not gonna stop bugging you until you do it.”

Zayn sighs again and can see Louis pulling one of his famous pouts out of his peripherals, and knows it’s hopeless to argue. Like he said, he’s not going to stop until Zayn does it, so Zayn saves his work and puts his laptop to the side.

“Okay, let’s do it,” Zayn gives in, standing up.

Louis immediately starts grinning widely and does a mini-dance. “Fantastic!” The two boys start walking to the kitchen and open the cabinet where they keep all their important school papers – including their scripts.

“So,” Louis draws out as the two of them are getting out their scripts. “Have you looked at your script at all since getting it?”

“I literally got it yesterday…” Zayn points out, closing the cabinet behind him.

“So, you haven’t,” Louis summarizes, shaking his head, disappointed. “Alright, sit down. We’re gonna go over what the play’s about before we get started.”

Zayn doesn’t think it’s that necessary to do that; after all, he _has_ heard _some_ of what the play’s about from painting the sets. However, he knows there’s no stopping Louis from anything once he’s made up his mind, so he sits down on a seat across from Louis at the kitchen table.

“Okay,” Louis starts. “So I’m Lucas and you’re Noah. Noah is new to this college, and trying to find himself. So his friend forces him to join an after school club right?”

“They have after school clubs in college?” Zayn asks, surprised. He always thought those were left in grade schools.

Louis raises an eyebrow and almost falls over laughing. “Zayn, what did you think I was going to whenever I talked about leaving for a meeting every week?”

“I thought you were going to meetings for your job,” Zayn mutters.

“Nah, GSA,” Louis tells him. “The job I work at rarely has meetings unless it’s something urgent.”

“Oh…” Zayn blushes, feeling embarrassed. How had he not realized that? He clears his throat, wanting to move back to the play now. “So, Noah joins an after school club…”

“Yes!” Louis confirms, immediately excited to be back in his element. “And it’s obvious he really doesn’t want to be there. Then, like, since it’s a skateboarding club, Lucas accidentally runs over Noah’s foot.”

Zayn bites back a snort at that as Louis continues. “After their awkward first meeting though, the two of them start talking and become friends. Then, eventually, they become even better than friends if you know what I mean.” He wiggles his eyebrows.

Zayn’s not sure he _does_ know what Louis means. He kind of hopes it’s not what he thinks it is. His confusion must show on his face because Louis rolls his eyes and tells Zayn, “They start dating, and the play ends with a fast forward to them kissing at their wedding.”

“Eew, I have to kiss _you_?” Zayn shivers, it clicking in his mind now. He knew he was probably going to have to kiss someone because that’s the way 99% of the plays he’s seen because of Louis work, but kissing _Louis_? His best friend since he was like eight? “That’s disgusting.”

“Excuse you,” Louis responds, fake offended. “I will have you know I am a _great_ kisser.” He giggles anyway though because he probably knows Zayn doesn’t mean any malice to it. “But seriously, it’s just a stage kiss. It’ll only last for like five seconds. Besides, we’ve kissed each other’s cheeks many times before.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the same. Here I have to make it look like I’m romantically attracted to you.” Zayn tells him, shivering again. “But fine. Five seconds. I think I can do that.”

“I’ll have you begging for it to be six.” Louis wiggles his eyebrows and winks. Zayn and Louis both crack up for a few minutes. “Alright, alright,” Louis eventually tries through giggles. “Let’s get back to the play.”

They talk about the play for a few more minutes, and practice for about two hours. If it were up to Zayn they would’ve been done sooner, but Louis kept saying “come on you can do better than that” so he kept going. Now though, Louis _finally_ seems to be letting Zayn off the hook for the night.

“We practice again same time tomorrow?” Louis asks as they put their scripts away.

Zayn laughs. “Why are you asking? We both know you’re just going to demand I do it no matter what I say.”

Louis shrugs. “True, but I like to make you think you have a choice.” He winks. Zayn shakes his head fondly and starts walking back over to his laptop so he can finish up his essay.

“Also don’t forget to keep studying your lines!” Louis calls as he starts walking up to his room.

“I won’t!” Zayn promises. He silently chuckles despite himself. Louis has always been such a theatre geek, and Zayn has always teased him for it, but now they’re both the stars of this play together. Who would’ve thought?

***

The next time the theatre department and all the cast members meet up to practice that Saturday, Zayn feels like he’s finally getting a bit better at his lines and the general feel for Noah. He feels like this, that is, until he has to practice a scene with the rest of the cast and he realizes how bad his acting is in comparison to theirs.

“What do you mean we have a competition soon?!” Niall, one of the other actors, demands. He’s staring at Louis with so much surprise and a slight anger that it almost makes Zayn forget it’s fake.

“I mean exactly that,” Louis responds, confused. “Our school is having a skateboarding competition soon with other Universities in this city. Were you not told about it?”

“No!” Niall replies, the anger taking over the surprise. “And I have so much to do but it would be nice to at least be included…”

Louis shrugs, and Zayn finds his eyes going over to Harry’s for some reason. Harry looks so happy and satisfied with the actors and it makes Zayn’s heart beat quicker. He blames it on the fact that he’s nervous about messing up the good acting so far with his bad acting. That’s all it is.

“Well don’t get huffy with me about it,” Louis says. “Go talk to Mr. Williams or something.”

“I should,” Niall agrees, anger still in his voice. “Thanks for telling me, Lucas.”

“Of course. See ya!” Louis turns his face to Zayn’s but Zayn’s still too occupied with staring at Harry for some odd reason. Louis is shaking his head. “I swear, sometimes I worry about him. You ready to go to the picnic, Noah?” A moment later and Louis repeats “Noah?”

Zayn realizes he’s talking to him a second later and blushes. “Uh…” he looks down at his next line. “Yeah, of course. I was born ready.”

It’s basically impossible to not notice how different Niall and Louis’ acting abilities are from Zayn’s ‘acting’ with even that one line. Louis is smiling at him, but he thinks it must either be out of pity or because that’s Lucas’ smile. He thinks he notices out of his peripherals as he keeps going through lines that Harry is smiling too, but that’s probably also just out of pity.

“Hey Zayn!” Harry calls. The cast are taking a break and Zayn has returned to his favorite thing associated with this play: painting. At least here Zayn doesn’t feel like he’s struggling behind the other artists’ ability as much… except when Harry makes him accidentally mess up his painting (again).

“Really? Again?” Zayn glares slightly as he turns around to face Harry.

Harry blushes, but continues walking toward Zayn instead of waiting for him to come over there this time. “Sorry. But I just wanted to say I think you did a great job today. I can tell you have been practicing a lot since we last talked.”

Zayn snorts. “Yeah, pretty great job…” he mutters as he turns back to painting, not wanting to make eye contact with Harry right now because he’s embarrassed.

“What?” Harry asks, and Zayn turns around to see Harry looking super confused.

Zayn laughs slightly. “Come on, Harry. You don’t have to lie to me out of pity or whatever. Anybody with eyes and ears could tell that my performance was seriously lacking in comparison to even the people who only have one line.”

That’s not to say, of course, that Zayn thinks the people who only have one line are bad or anything. It’s just that they only have one line they can mess up. He has like three hundred or something.

Harry shrugs. “Well, okay, you probably could’ve done a little bit better on some parts.” Zayn snorts again; more like a lot better on all parts… “But come on, you just got the script a week ago. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“Yeah, and I only have like a month to memorize it all and get it perfect,” Zayn shakes his head, carefully painting over his mistake. “Honestly, Harry. I’m not sure I can do it. I told you before, I’m really not the acting type.”

There’s a little bit of silence and Zayn thinks Harry’s left. When he turns back around to put his paintbrush in the water and get a new color on it though, he sees Harry’s still there, suddenly staring at Zayn with something like huge determination in his face.

He’s just about to ask what the heck that face is for, when Harry speaks. “I’m gonna do practice sessions with you.”

“What?” Zayn asks, raising his eyebrows.

Harry immediately starts looking more nervous. “I mean… If you wanted to that is. I know what it’s like to feel insecure about your abilities and I just thought that maybe… Uh…”

He’s freaking out right now and Zayn laughs a little bit, setting down his brush and walking over to put his arms on Harry’s shoulders. “Harry, calm down. It’s okay yeah? I would love to practice with you.”

He realizes technically he already has a practice partner (Louis) but he doesn’t think Louis will object. Besides, it might be easier to pretend to be romantically attracted to someone he doesn’t really know yet (especially someone as attractive as Harry) than his best friend since he was eight.

Harry grins at that. “Okay. Great. I’ll… uh… give you my phone number and we can work out a good meeting time that works for both our class schedules?”

“Sure. I’ll give you mine too.” Zayn agrees, reaching down into his pocket to pull out his phone. The two boys switch phones with each other and save their numbers.

“Zayn… Muhleek?” Harry asks when he gets his phone back.

Zayn cracks up a bit. “No, it’s Malik. It’s okay, that’s a common mistake.”

“Oh.” Harry blushes anyway. “Zayn Malik. That’s a very pretty name.”

“Thank you,” Zayn responds, smiling. After a few moments of awkward silence where they just stare at each other, Zayn clears his throat. “Well… uh… I’m gonna go back to painting sets now, yeah?”

“Right,” Harry nods. “I’ll text you my schedule and stuff soon.”

“Sounds good. Talk to you later.”

“Talk to you later.”

With that, the two of them go back to their various other obligations. As Zayn’s painting, he finds himself thinking about the fact that he can’t wait for his and Harry’s first practice session.

***

A few days later, after discussing their school and work schedules in detail, Zayn’s heading to the theatre building. Harry said they should practice on the stage to get used to it. Zayn thought that was a terrible idea because the stage scared him to death.

“Well,” Harry had said, perking up. “It’s a _good_ idea to practice then. If you’re scared of performing, it’s good to practice so you eventually get used to it, yeah?”

Zayn had just shrugged and said “I guess” and after that it was decided.

When Zayn gets inside and starts going toward the stage, Harry smiles widely at him. Zayn’s heart starts beating quickly; it’s probably his stage fright. Yeah, that’s it.

“So,” Harry says when Zayn gets all the way up to the stage. “Did you remember to bring your script?”

Zayn rolls his eyes slightly. “Yeah. When we’re here to practice our lines, of course I forgot the thing with my lines on it.” He pulls a stack of papers with the play name on the top out of his bag and holds them up so Harry can see them. “Of course I remembered.”

Harry pouts. “Oh come on, I was just making sure. I always have extras in case you ever _do_ forget though, just for the record.” Zayn knows he was being a bit harsh, and he appreciates Harry’s offers to help a lot, really. He must’ve just spent too much time over the years with Louis and gotten more sassy as a result.

“Anyway,” Harry continues, smiling again like nothing happened. “Are there any specific places you’re really struggling with?”

“...All of it?” Zayn laughs awkwardly, blushing.

Instead of judging him though, Harry just nods understandingly. “How about we start from the beginning then? I’ll be Mary at the beginning.”

“Umm… Alright…” Zayn clears his throat, trying to get into the character of Noah now. “I don’t know about this, Mary. I don’t think joining a skateboard club is the right way to break me into college.”

“Well it’s much more productive than just laying around here all day!” Harry interjects. “Come on. Do you really want to go through your college experience with only one friend?”

“Yes,” Zayn replies, trying his best to put on an indifferent expression but he probably just looks like he’s lost his mind instead. “All I need is you and frequent calls to my mum and sisters and I’m good.” Zayn almost wants to laugh at the irony; that sounds like exactly the kind of thing he said to Louis his freshman year too.

Harry exhales. “Well, until you give it a chance, I’m changing the wifi password on my laptop.”

“How the heck can you do that? It’s the school wifi.” He tries to use his fear of the stage and so many people watching him stutter to put fear into his voice and face. He’s not sure it works; mostly it just feels like his mind is going on overdrive now because gosh, people are going to _see_ him stuttering and messing up every line and he’s kind of freaking out...

“I have my ways,” Harry wiggles his eyebrows, and darn it if that doesn’t just about calm all of Zayn’s fears.

Instead he just starts laughing, long and hard. He looks out at the (currently empty) audience expecting to feel something, but he just can’t stop thinking about Harry wiggling his eyebrows and keeps laughing.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he tries through giggles, but Harry is giggling just as hard now.

“It’s alright,” Harry says, words equally as distorted because of laughs. “This is what practice is for.”

The two of them spend a few more minutes like that, until they finally collect themselves and start over. Throughout the rest of the session, Zayn finds himself feeling much better, much lighter, and not as scared as before.

There’s still a medium sense of fear inside him at the idea of so many people watching him, but then he just thinks of Harry wiggling his eyebrows and his heart feels happy. Right now they’re doing the scene where Lucas and Noah first meet.

“Ugh,” Zayn complains. “Why did I even let Mary force me into joining this dumb club? I don’t even wanna be-”

He’s cut off by Harry “running over” his foot (they don’t actually have skateboards with them so really Harry just lightly steps on his foot).

“Really?” Zayn glares, raising his voice so it sounds like a yelp.

“I’m sorry,” Harry responds all at once. Zayn swears his face looks so genuinely embarrassed that he almost feels like they’re back in that first time they met when Harry made Zayn mess up the painting. “I didn’t see you - oh.”

Harry’s looking at Zayn wide-eyed now, with a daydream-y look on his face. Zayn has no idea why his heart is skipping a beat at that face; probably because he’s still scared of messing up his next line.

“OH?” Zayn replies angrily. “That’s all you have to say for running over my feet?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Harry repeats. “It’s just… Wow. You’re so beautiful. What’s your name?”

“Uh… Noah,” Zayn says warily. “And… thanks for the compliment, I guess…”

Harry grins widely. “Nice to meet you Noah. I’m Lucas. I’m sorry about your feet. Would you like to… come skateboard with me perhaps?”

“Um… sure.”

“Okay,” Harry looks at his watch. “I think that’s about all I have time for today, and you have a class in about twenty minutes, so. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Zayn responds, trying to get his mind back to Zayn instead of Noah.

“You did great today,” Harry assures him. “Really. Especially with that last scene. I still think there’s some stuff we can work on, but you did really great.”

Zayn feels his hands shaking a little bit, though he’s not sure why. “Thank you so much Harry. It means a lot.”

“Anytime.” He starts wrapping his arms around Zayn, but then pulls back. “Oh. Is it okay if I hug you? I know we just met, but like… I’ve always been a very huggy person and… Yeah.” He looks around awkwardly, like he’s about to go, but Zayn just laughs. Harry’s so adorable. Adorable like a little kid ashamedly asking their mom for one more piece of candy tonight.

“Come here,” Zayn tells him, pulling him in for a hug. It lasts a little bit longer than it probably should have, but Harry doesn’t seem to be complaining. When they pull back finally, Zayn waves. “Well I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.”

“Bye Zayn,” Harry calls back as Zayn starts walking down the stairs to get offstage.

Zayn will never admit it to anyone, not even himself, but he finds his thoughts going back to that hug for the rest of the day.

***

Zayn and Harry keep meeting up on a regular basis, and Zayn starts feeling more and more confident each time. He also notices his heart has been having problems beating quicker and quicker each time he has to pretend to be in love with Harry; he has no idea why that could be though.

It apparently hasn’t gone unnoticed – the fact that he’s been spending a lot of time with Harry – because one day Louis brings it up.

“Why are you practicing so much with Harry, hmm?” Louis questions, raising an eyebrow. “Am I really that bad of a person to practice with?”

“No!” Zayn objects. “It’s just… Harry offers me more constructive critiques and like, it’s easier to pretend to be attracted to someone who’s not my best friend.”

“Well, Malik, you’re gonna have to pretend to be attracted to me eventually!” Louis points out. “You know what? I’m coming with you to you and Harry’s next practice session. It’s my responsibility as your actual Lucas, yeah?”

Zayn grumbles, but he knows if he says “no”, Louis would figure out a way to come anyway because he’s Louis. “Alright, fine. We’re gonna do a session at the theatre building in ten minutes. Do you want to come to that one?”

“Yes!” Louis immediately responds. “I’m gonna go get my script and stuff.” Zayn watches as Louis practically speed-walks up the stairs to his room and shakes his head. Zayn truly has the weirdest best friend, but he loves him so much.

Ten minutes later, the two of them head towards the theatre building. When they get there, Louis goes in first, Zayn choosing to wait just a beat longer. Harry immediately turns towards the opening door with a big smile. “Hey Zay- oh. Hi Louis.”

“Wow, it’s like that then huh?” Louis responds, rolling his eyes. “I thought play writers weren’t supposed to pick favorite actors.” Zayn chuckles softly at Harry’s red cheeks and then makes his entrance.

“Hey Zayn!” Harry says, recovering semi-quickly.

“Hey Harry!” Zayn calls back, walking in front of Louis now and proceeding to hug Harry. “Sorry, this one-” he motions behind him when the two separate a little bit, but not enough to break the hug. “-Demanded to come along this time. Hope that’s not a problem.”

“No, not at all,” Harry is quick to tell him. “I think it’s actually probably a good thing that you practice with the actual Lucas as well.”

“You two are adorable,” comes Louis’ voice from behind them. They both turn to face him. “What? I’m just giving a compliment. Anyway… Are we gonna get this thing started?”

“Right, yeah,” Harry agrees as he and Zayn remove themselves from each other. “Let’s do the ignoring scene now, yeah?”

Zayn and Louis open their scripts to the page where the scene Harry’s talking about starts.

“Why are you ignoring me, Noah?” Louis pleads. “Did I do something to upset you?”

“No,” Zayn responds, and he finds his eyes flicking to Harry because he’s used to Harry saying Lucas’ lines to him. “You didn’t do anything! That’s the problem, Lucas. You didn’t do anything. I’ve just realized I’m head over heels for you, and that’s not allowed to happen.”

“Why isn’t it?” Louis asks softly.

“Because there’s no way you’ll ever feel the same about me,” Zayn tells him.

They continue doing their lines, and when it’s over Harry pulls Zayn aside. “Zayn, what was that? You were doing so well last time when you practiced the scene with me!”

Zayn shrugs. “Guess I’m just better at doing it when I’m with you…”

“Well, seeing as how Louis is the actual one playing Lucas, you need to work on that,” Harry tells him honestly, no malice intended. “Let’s do it again, yeah?”

So they do. They keep going with it, and Zayn thinks he does at least a little bit better, but not the best he could be doing. Louis seems to notice it too, because later that day when they both go home and are having dinner, he speaks up.

“You know,” he starts, taking a sip of his evening tea. “I think it was a bad idea for me to practice with you and Harry today.”

“Why do you say that?” Zayn asks, feeling kind of worried at where this could be going.

Louis just shrugs though. “It’s obvious you just practice better when you’re with him.” Zayn goes to protest, but Louis cuts him off. “Zayn, it’s okay. Really. I’m not offended. If he’s who you need to practice with in order to get the best results, then by all means keep practicing with him, yeah?”

Zayn nods and grins gently. “Thanks for being so understanding, Louis.”

“No problem.” Louis takes another sip of his tea. “But don’t forget, when it’s time for the actual play, I _am_ your Lucas.”

Zayn laughs and takes a sip of his own tea. “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

***

After that, with Louis’ blessing, Zayn goes back to practicing with Harry. There’s immediately an obvious difference in Zayn’s ability to do the lines well. After the third of their practices though, Harry decides to stop lecturing Zayn on the fact that he needs to get this comfortable with Louis being Lucas instead of him, and just do practicing.

Zayn’s going to do his usual session with Harry today, and when he enters the building, he’s taken aback when he sees what Harry’s wearing. It’s a really fancy suit, kind of looks like it’s only ever been worn once. Eventually though, once he gets over his shock, he starts laughing.

“Well,” he says through laughs, getting up on the stage. “I sure feel underdressed right now.”

Harry just grins and shrugs though. “I thought we’d do the wedding scene today, and I wanted to dress for the occasion.”

Zayn snorts, ignoring the feeling in his chest he gets at the mention of the wedding scene. “Oh so you just wanted to show up all dressed up and leave me in the dark about it, then?”

“Yeah,” Harry agrees. “You always look better than me so I thought I’d turn the tables this time.”

Zayn considers for a moment. “I still look better than you,” he finally plays along, winking.

Harry cracks up at that for a moment. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s get to it then shall we?”

So they do. As they keep going, Zayn feels fine, really. Sure his legs and hands keep shaking a bit, but he’s fine, totally fine.

Then they get to the kiss scene. Zayn knows it’s coming, knows this is the part of the play where he’s going to have to kiss Louis and make it look at least a little believable. However, as soon as Harry’s lips are on his, Zayn’s disgust at the idea of kissing his best friend are gone. Instead they’re replaced with thoughts about how amazing Harry’s lips feel and taste. Wow, Zayn loves this moment so much.

He’s pretty sure the amount of time he’s spending kissing Harry is way longer than what one could qualify as a “stage kiss”, but Harry, for some reason, doesn’t stop him. He just lets Zayn keep going until he decides he wants it to be over (which is never, he thinks to himself). When Zayn pulls away, he expects Harry to make a big fuss about it or something, but instead he just smiles like this is nothing out of the ordinary (minus the hint of a blush on his cheeks). Does Harry do this with _all_ the new actors or something?

“Well done,” Harry responds happily. “I actually think that’s your best performance yet. I think as soon as you’re able to do that scene without looking at your script at all, you’ll be ready for the show. See you tomorrow.”

Zayn just nods distantly and starts slowly walking out the door. He spends the rest of the day on autopilot. He kissed Harry. Deeply, way deeper and longer than stage kisses should last. Harry didn’t stop him. And Zayn didn’t want it to stop either. What does this mean?

Well that’s a no-brainer really. It’s pretty obvious what it means: he has an actual, real crush on Harry. He refuses to accept this though. He _can’t_ have feelings for Harry. It’s just not allowed.

The thing Zayn does next, is probably the worst idea he’s ever had, but it’s the only one he can see working in the fragile state he’s in.

He avoids Harry. He avoids Louis too, as best he can since they live together. He wakes up earlier than before, gets back later than before, and spends more time in his room than downstairs. He also throws himself into his school work as best he can.

The first day he goes without practicing lines with Harry, he feels a little empty, like something’s missing. He keeps practicing his lines on his own in his room though; he’s not really sure why, since he’s pretty set on never going back to that play/Harry now. Maybe it’s for the familiarity or something.

Either way, he continues in this pattern for the next several days. Harry tries calling him four times. Zayn ignores it.

He texts him as well.

_Did I do something to upset you in our last session or something? Haven’t seen you in a few days , kinda worried .H_

Since Zayn’s way past tipsy by the time he sees this text, he responds to it.

 **_Zayn:_ ** _Why ? You’re not my brother…_

 **_Harry:_ ** _No, but I’m your friend…_

 **_Zayn:_ ** _Right…_

 **_Zayn:_ ** _I don’t think Ill be coming back to the play. Find someone else to play noah …_

After that he turns his phone off and puts it away where he won’t see it again for the rest of the night.

The next day – a Saturday, thank goodness – Zayn wakes up with a throbbing headache and hangover, and Louis banging at his door.

“ZAYN!” He yells. Zayn grumbles, trying to close his eyes again so hopefully that’ll make Louis go away. It doesn’t. “Zayn, if you think just because we’re in our twenties that I’m past the stage where I’d break this door down if it came to it, you’ve got another thing coming!”

“Alright, alright…” Zayn mumbles, slowly getting up and unlocking the door.

“Yeah, that’s right, you better look guilty,” Louis crosses his arms as he walks inside.

Zayn decides to go back to laying down on his bed, half-heartedly inviting Louis to sit on the chair next to his bed.

“Guilty?” Zayn yawns as Louis sits down. “For what? Staying up late getting drunk like a normal Uni lad?”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” Louis responds, still glaring at him. Zayn genuinely has no idea what Louis is talking about, but he’s pretty sure he’s about to tell him. “You told Harry you weren’t gonna be Noah anymore!”

Oh. That. “Yeah, so?” Zayn shrugs – or attempts to anyway. “He can just find another person to play him, not my problem.”

“No, he can’t!” Louis nearly-screams. “The play is in ONE week Zayn. One. Week. And he doesn’t have any more understudies. He told you that when he first asked you to take the part.”

Zayn feels like this should make him feel guilty or something but the only thing he feels is tired still. He almost-shrugs again. “Stinks for him, I guess.”

Louis’ mouth just hangs open wordlessly for a few moments, until finally he speaks again. “What the heck happened between you two? Just a week or so ago, you two looked like best friends or something at practice.”

“Nothing happened,” Zayn lies, a pang of guilt filling his body suddenly. “I just… didn’t wanna do it anymore.”

“You didn’t wanna do it anymore,” Louis repeats, laughing humorlessly. “Right, okay. What if one day I just stopped paying my half of the rent on this apartment because I ‘just didn’t wanna do it anymore’? What if I did that and made you do all the bill paying yourself? How would you feel?”

“Louis, that’s not fair-”

“You would feel pretty crummy I’d say.” Louis continues, ignoring all Zayn’s protests. “If you had just said ‘I don’t wanna do it’ when he asked you to do it the first time like a month ago or whatever, that wouldn’t have been a big deal. But you didn’t do that. No, instead you waited until one week before the show to quit.

“And you may be my friend, Zayn, but that doesn’t mean you get a free pass from criticism. You’re selfish for doing this, and I’m not sorry for telling you so.” He clears his throat. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go practice my lines for this play you quit for literally no reason.”

He walks out, slamming the door behind him. Zayn just sits there, blinking at the door. He wants to cry, lash out, and stay where he is all at the same time. Ultimately the last one wins.

Louis is right; he _was_ selfish. Is _being_ selfish. It’s not just about Harry either. All the rest of the cast, crew, etc. are also going to be in trouble because of the decision he’s made. He can’t go back though; he _can’t_ face his feelings for Harry and admit he was wrong for just leaving when things got weird/too personal for him.

What he can do, he decides, is go back to sleep and forget this day so far has happened. So that’s what he does.

***

Zayn continues practicing his lines. He really does love this play. He really wants to go up there on the day of the show and prove to everyone - himself included - that he’s right for this part.

Whenever he finds his thoughts drifting to that idea though, he realizes it would mean admitting to Harry why he left and he really, really doesn’t want to have to do that. Over the next few days, he finds himself opening and closing it again.

***

A few days later, it’s the day of the last dress rehearsal. Zayn only knows because Louis keeps telling him that about every five seconds (probably as an attempt to get Zayn to reconsider his decision).

Zayn helps Louis put on his costume, and right before Louis leaves, he turns to Zayn one last time. “I really can’t believe you’re doing this. The Zayn I met years ago would have never let down so many people counting on him. Now Harry has to play Noah himself, and he’s struggling so hard with it.”

“It’s not like it matters,” Zayn mutters, though his heart beats a little bit faster out of guilt and worry about Harry. Harry is one of the most confident people he knows; imaging him struggling that much doesn’t feel right at all. “Harry just cares about the fact he’s missing a different person to play Noah, he doesn’t care who plays it.”

“Is that what this is about? You think he doesn’t care about you or something?” Louis asks. Zayn shrugs noncommittally, silently thinking to himself _not in the way I care about him…_

“Zayn, when we saw him again after your text, he was full-on crying,” Louis tells him. “It was a wonder we got anything done that day.” He pauses as he looks through his pocket book. Zayn thinks about that for a moment; Harry, full-on crying. The image alone makes _him_ want to cry.

“He also asks me about you every day he sees me. ‘Doesn’t care about you’ my butt.” Before Zayn can respond, Louis gets his keys and heads out the door. “See you later, Zayn.”

Zayn just stands there for a while, watching Louis drive away until he’s completely out of sight. Zayn can’t stop repeating those words over and over again in his head. ‘He also asks me about you every day he sees me’. Is that true? Does Harry really care about Zayn that much?

Zayn decides that it’s time to swallow his pride and find out for himself. He grabs his own keys and heads out to his car.

***

When he arrives where Louis said the final dress rehearsal was taking place at and goes inside, he freezes as he hears Harry talking.

“Guys, I really don’t want to have to do this.” He sounds like he’s crying. Zayn wants to just run in there and hug him tight and make it all better, but for now something is gluing him to his place. “But… I’m afraid I’m going to have to cancel this play.”

Sounds of people in the room shouting “no” can be heard loud and clear. “I know, I don’t want to do it either, but now that Zayn’s left, I…” he chokes on his words a bit. “I can’t do the part of Noah myself, and so… I’m afraid I have to cancel it. I’m so sorry.”

Zayn can’t listen to this anymore. Finally his feet let him move and he’s running inside the room. “NO!” he shouts all at once, every face turning to him suddenly. “You can’t cancel it. This is a great play, and it deserves to be seen by everyone.”

As he looks around, he can feel himself frowning bigger and his face turning redder. When he lands on Louis, Louis’ just smiling at him and mouthing ‘keep going’, so he takes a deep breath and does just that.

“Harry,” he says, although he keeps looking at Louis because he’s too scared. “I’m really sorry I left the play without warning. I was a jerk and…”

He turns his face to the floor, afraid to even look at Louis as he says the next words. “After you had kissed me when we practiced that wedding scene together, I realized that… I have a crush on you. And I didn’t want to have to deal with that, so I ran away from it, from you.”

Zayn chances a glance at Harry now and isn’t really sure what to make of his facial expression, but doesn’t allow himself to lose eye contact now… or to start crying like his eyes and brain are telling him to.

“Like Louis so ‘nicely’ told me though; I was being selfish. I left you and all these people because of my feelings, but…” he clears his throat. “I’ve still been practicing my lines, and would love to still be Noah, if you’ll let me.”

“Yes!” Harry immediately says, nearly yelling as he pulls Zayn in for a hug. “Are you kidding me? I’m so glad you came back. And of course you’re more than welcome to be Noah again. We wouldn’t have it any other way.”

After a few minutes of the two boys just kind of staring happily at each other, Louis clears his throat. “So, as touching as this is, can we have our actual final dress rehearsal now?”

Zayn and Harry laugh at that, and they pull away from each other’s arms finally. “Yes, yes, the show must go on as they say,” Harry replies dramatically. “So Zayn, ready to rehearse?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Zayn winks.

***

The final dress rehearsal went perfectly. More than perfectly in Zayn’s opinion. He was actually really impressed with how many of his lines he remembered in perfect order, even if he’d been practicing.

Now, he’s about to take the stage. He smiles at Louis and gives a quick kiss to Harry (who confessed after the dress rehearsal was over that he, too, had a crush on Zayn) before taking a deep breath and waiting for the curtains to open.

And when he hits that stage, Zayn's not scared of the audience. Not scared of messing up his lines. Not scared of all the people watching him.

Because as he realized yesterday when he watched Louis drive away to the last dress rehearsal, he'd be more scared of letting Harry down by not doing the show at all.


End file.
